In Between Days

I'm stuck in Chicago for a long time on the trip back. So I go to Chili's and sit down for a beer and burger.








Now, I ordered the meal knowing that it might go badly. I have eaten only spicy food for two months- would American cusine seem bland and boring? Big and bloating? Or better than best?
Well, actually it seemed kind of blah blah blah. Not quite familiar enough to overcome it's taste to become satisfying.
Not that I would prefer chicken korma right now, it's just that my tastes, my sense of time, my day to day routine, my sleep schedule, what seems normal, everything is in transition at the moment. I'm in between. I'm stuck in that Indian half hour delay.
Perhaps I'm being dramatic. All I know is; I feel weird, I miss my friends and family and don't want to get so comfortable at home that I forget that.
Somebody asked me if I had "picked up" Hinduism while there. Not really. But I thought about Shiva a little on the trip. That dude isn't afraid to clean house to get the new stuff in. I think that that's good for me to focus on. Set your sights on change and make it happen.
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Meanwhile: my metaphoric state has become quite real. I am stranded between home and the road. Stuck in Chicago. The person that booked our travel only allowed an hour for me to get my bags, clear customs and catch my next flight. Well, Air India 127 taxied into O'Hare at the time my connecting flight was leaving. Hurm.
So, I go to American and the lady is a total jerkface and sends me back to Air India. After 45 mins there the guy sends me back to American. Now during that time he told me that there was no flights and I would have to stay over and take the 9am flight. Okfine, but then they somehow find me one and I go back to American get booked, and settle in for the 6-plus hour wait.
Cue the Mother Nature drama as we learn that after the long wait my flight and three others are all cancelled due to wind.
I could have been sleeping at the hotel and booked for the morning, but now I'm in a giant crush of people trying to get re-booked. After an hour or so of listening to the Worlds Most Annoying Spring Break Teens I get booked and then it's several hours of waiting for my bags as three planeloads of luggage is disgorged into baggage area 5. My two carry-on bags are heavy and I'm already tired, so when I finally get the rest of my luggage, I'm a dead man. Now I have a huge walk to the hotel shuttle.
Because my problem is now due to weather, and not Air India's tardiness, the best AA will do is give me a discount at the Holiday Inn. Whatever, I just want to sleep. Cue the A Billion Dudes With The Same Problem problem. After waiting in the freezing cold for twenty minutes, the Holiday Inn guy tells me there is No Vacancy. Ha ha. Of course not. There is a Hilton across the street fron the shuttle waiting area so I drag my butt over there feeling about like Napoleon's army retreating from Russia.
Happy happy, the rooms are only $239! I'm too tired to argue. I take one and fall down dead.
Except that my sleep schedule as I mentioned earlier is a mess, so I wake up at 4 hours later. Have I complained enough? The one good news so far is that they originally had me booked out today at 9:45pm. So I went from free hotel and 9am flight to expensive hotel and 9pm flight. Since checkout is at noon that would make for a long day in the airport. But at 4am I called re-booking and they found me a one-stopper that leaves at 2:45. Gets into Boston around 10. Still a god-awful day, but less so.
Fun sidebar. One of the things we were looking forward to in returning to the US was the language familiarity. It gets tiring working to understand the Indian accent. But since I've been in Chicago, most everyone I've dealt with has their own dialect. Armenian baggage claim, Eastern Euro ticket lady, Japanese waitress. I really am in-between. Shiva destroys things. Maybe he brought the wind to teach me something more. I dunno. I hope my lesson is over soon, though.

Posted from my iPhone